Sierra Multiverse
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: A series of short stories about King Graham, Princess Rosella, Roger Wilco, Larry Laffer, Sonny Bonds, and other animated adventure game characters interacting with each other and Earth in the most unusual and unlikely ways, a sign that the multiverse may truly be real. Rated T for mild themes from Police Quest and Leisure Suit Larry.
1. Introduction

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the computer adventure games by Sierra On-Line Inc. This is a work of fiction, and is based off of the concept of characters from neighboring games, like Larry and Rosella, meeting in the same parallel world despite one of them not belonging there; it doesn't actually reflect real life in any way.

* * *

In time immemorial, when God, or the natural course of the universe, caused the Big Bang, created the primary universe, and brought life to the world known as the Earth, he also created countless parallel worlds and universes.

Though the scientific details, like quantum physics, had not been discovered by science until the twentieth century, many of Earth's humans suspected that there was more to the universe than just their own world and their own race. And when that particular century arrived, most scientists began to agree that a series of "pocket universes" existed so far apart that they couldn't touch each other, and yet so close that people from each universe could have dreams, visions, or even computer messages or images from the other ones.

This fascinating phenomenon was named the multiverse.

Throughout the years, stories circulated through books and TV shows all over Earth, some fictitious and some presumably not. Everything from discovering a ghost ship at sea to time travel from the far future into the past billions of years ago.

Arguments arose, too, about whether or not these pocket universes were caused by God or gods, or even by some other spiritual force, for there were some spiritual and religious people who believed in the multiverse just as much as the secular pragmatists called atheists and agnostics were.

This is not the story of a spiritual/secular debate about the multiverse, though. It also is not about the quantum physics behind parallel worlds, or even the traditional tales that "crazy" people tell unbelieving "realists" every day.

It is about some of the interesting and humorous occurrences that happened in a particular corner of the multiverse. Because, starting in the early 1980's, a team of computer game programmers and marketers started to design and make several series of games that would take on a life of their own and interact with each other, and with the Earth, and quite possibly with other parallel worlds, too.

These are the adventures of the characters in the Sierra multiverse as they bump into each other in their own worlds and with ordinary humans on Earth, and these are the games they come from:

* * *

**King's Quest:** Graham, Alexander, Rosella, Valanice, Cassima, Edgar, Genesta, Connor, three-headed dragon, one-headed dragon, Crispin, Cedric.

**Space Quest:** Roger Wilco, Beatrice Wankmeister, Roger Wilco Jr., Sludge Vohaul, Model QR 7 pilot droid.

**Leisure Suit Larry:** Larry Laffer, Passionate Patti, Lefty, other ladies in Larry's life.

**Police Quest:** Sonny Bonds, Marie Wilkans Bonds, Keith Robinson, Laura Watts, other cops, Jesse Bains.

**Manhunter:** nameless manhunter, Orbs, Phil Cook.

* * *

And above all else, remember this: whether there is a God or not, the multiverse exists, and anything is possible in it. Even works of man-made fiction can create a parallel world. If books like _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and _His Dark Materials_ can have a multiverse, so can the Sierra games. So proceed, please, and learn about how the multiverse can be not only fascinating, but also humorous.


	2. Lost Wages Vs Las Vegas

Larry Laffer stepped into Lefty's Lounge for a few drinks, in the town of Lost Wages. It was the middle of _Leisure Suit Larry 1_. He had almost consummated a relationship with a beautiful woman named Fawn. He had even married her; but she had betrayed him, tying him to the bed in their honeymoon suite and stealing all his money except for $10 in a secret compartment. And now he had come back to Lefty's to drown his sorrows and loosen up a little before spending a little time with a hooker in one of the hotel rooms.

Lefty, the old bartender in the bar lounge, asked Larry what he wanted. "Make it wine, Lefty," said Larry.

"Coming right up!" said Lefty. He went to pour the drink, and gave it to Larry, asking for $4.00. Larry paid him; he had just gained back his money at Tramp's Casino Hotel by playing a little Blackjack.

As he sipped the wine, Lefty edged up to Larry and said, "Hey, did ya' know that there's another place to get lucky with money besides this?"

"Really?" said Larry.

"Yeah," said Lefty, "It's just a heartbeat away from Lost Wages, and it's called Las Vegas."

"Oh, yeah," said Larry, remembering now, "It's just parallel to Lost Wages here. I don't know a lot of the details, but I hear it's a step above this seedy town."

"Indeed," Lefty said, "I can tell you some things about its hotels and casinos. The big difference between Las Vegas and Lost Wages is that Las Vegas, especially its resort/casinos, caters a little more to families, and has more themes written into the design of those places. There's more to do in the resorts, and they focus on having fun. Lost Wages, however, is one hell of a stink hole. I mean, just look at it. Twice as many muggers, wedding chapel ministers who drink on the job, my own place, catering to the illicit and illegitimate, and unwashed bathrooms with depressed drunks hanging around outside them. Not to mention the casino hotels are too cheap to offer a wide array of gambling, and the comedians ramble on with the sickest jokes, like they've been looking at too much pornography! It sickens me, this place!"

"I don't doubt, though," said Larry, "that Lost Wages has a few good qualities, too, and maybe Las Vegas could learn something from it, as well. But I do agree that it could use more joints like the Rio, Tropicana, Bally's, and the Bellagio. Las Vegas sure goes out of its way to make things lovely and comfortable, not to mention interesting, while Lost Wages only offers the basics and the seedy side of life."

"Take my advice, man," said Lefty, "This is your universe, you belong here as much as I do, but if you ever see a certain alternate Earth, look up Las Vegas. And try out some of the hotel/resort/casinos that you'll find there. You won't regret it, because it's a place where everything that happens there, stays there."

"Maybe I will," said Larry, "I'd like to introduce this swanky place to them, too, but I do envy Las Vegas in that it has places like the Tropicana and Mandalay Bay, where gambling in swimsuits is allowed. Why can't the people of Lost Wages do something like that? I thought my world was supposed to be deluxe and sexy."

"Beats me," said Lefty. Then he said, "Oops, another customer's calling me. Nice talking to you, Laffer." He went to serve a drink to that customer.

* * *

About a year later, in _Leisure Suit Larry 3_, after a time and space travel to the "real world," when Larry and Passionate Patti were sitting by a swimming pool in swimsuits, Larry was designing his own "Larry" games for Sierra On-Line with tips from Patti, and arranged to make the narrator in each game interact with "him" as a character, to make sure this world saw and understood (and enjoyed) Larry's classy adventures in Lost Wages and other romantic locales. He also arranged for his friend, Lefty, to set up a communication service of some kind where Lost Wages and Las Vegas could keep in touch and compare and contrast what made each good and/or bad.

When Larry later returned with Patti to his universe during the mysterious time period of the missing game, _Leisure Suit Larry 4: The Missing Floppies_, well, let's just say that's history, but he had just proven that there were parallel worlds in the multiverse, and that Lost Wages and Las Vegas were parallel cities with a lot to go for them (as well as against them).


	3. Police Artistry in the Museum

It was another day in the life of the apparently nameless Manhunter in post-apocalyptic New York City. The Orb that was in charge of giving him his assignments each morning had ordered him to investigate the theft of some artwork that the Orb Alliance had set up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to honor their own species' culture and religion.

_Great,_ the Manhunter thought to himself quietly. _Now, I've got to weed out at least one criminal who stole something that's precious to these blasted Orbs._ He got out of his bed and put on his hooded brown robe and shoes. Then he turned the light on, and settled down on the bed to track the same criminal throughout his or her previous activities.

On his Manhunter Assignment Device (M.A.D.), he watched as an icon of an unknown citizen broke in through the side of the building and went into one of the galleries, taking some art from the exhibit, apparently. Then he/she made their escape out the same entrance made in the building's side. Next, they went to Coney Island, and there, the suspect went to one of the gaming booths and stopped there for a moment. Then, he/she went to Central Park and went in various directions throughout the park, presumably avoiding land mines set up by the Orbs, until a mysterious figure met him in the middle of the park, and they both disappeared near the Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

Soon, the Manhunter was on his way to investigate the scene of the crime. He took the shortest route to the museum, and when he got there, he looked for the side entrance. Evidently, the suspect had bombed the side of the building in order to get inside, so he entered through the hole in the wall. He soon found the gallery where the art had been. He knew that it was the right one because they had left behind a statue of a giant Orb that they apparently couldn't move. The walls were empty of any paintings, though, and the sculptures had been smashed to pieces. He also found a crowbar and a fire-axe on the floor, presumably used to take off the pictures and break the other sculptures. Taking the crowbar with him, he resigned himself to the trouble of navigating Central Park again. Secretly, he hoped that this underground resistance movement against the Orbs would succeed someday. The Orbs were all but putrid rulers to him.

Something caught his interest as he passed through one of the other galleries on his way out. There was a chipped statue of what must have been a cop from the 1980's, dressed in a crisp police uniform. The plaque said he was, "Sonny Bonds, Police Hero of Lytton CA." He also saw some fascinating pictures of events in this cop's life. In one painting, he saw Sonny Bonds, aka Jimmy Lee "Whitey" Banksten, playing poker with Otto Lipscithz, Gene "The Bambino" Bamboni, and Jesse Hiram Bains, aka Frank Sloan, in the Hotel Delphoria's back room. The Manhunter had always enjoyed looking at art of people (and dogs) playing cards. There was also a painting of Sonny and his high school sweetheart, Marie Wilkans, at their wedding ceremony, getting married, and even a painting of Woody Roberts, Don Colby, Jesse Bains, and corrupt cop Pat Morales lying in hell, being tormented by demon monsters and eerie skeletons.

The Manhunter scratched his head under his hood. He never knew that a police officer would be so honored in the Metropolitan Museum of Art before. Cops don't normally have art of themselves put in a major American museum. Could he be from another world? It wasn't beyond possibility, he knew. There were obviously aliens in the universe besides humans, as the Orbs had proven. He looked around for some evidence of this, and found a plaque by the entrance/exit saying, _"Sonny Bonds Gallery, honorable police officer of Lytton, CA, from the Police Quest universe."_

He was quietly awed. _So that's where he comes from_, he thought with interest. Officer Sonny Bonds comes from a parallel universe, or parallel world. We could sure use his help, and that of his police force, at a time like this. I hope that the Orbs haven't found their way into any parallel worlds. It's bad enough my own is tortured by these scoundrels!

He started when he heard a voice behind him. An Orb had become wise to him slacking off on the job. "Manhunter! You have a job to do. Get back on it now, or you will be demoted immediately!"

Nervously, the Manhunter nodded, not being allowed to speak by the aliens, and the Orb floated away, though he could sense that it was still keeping its eye on him from a distance. Realizing how close he had come to termination, he reluctantly submitted to the Orb's wish and continued his trek to Central Park, although the thought of a strange, heroic cop living on a parallel Earth did not leave him for a very long time.


End file.
